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GATINEAU — There were two Liberal leadership debates over the weekend and the mood at each couldn’t have more different.

The first, an all-English affair in Montreal on Saturday, took on an unusually nasty tone when candidate Raymond Bachand attacked opponent Philippe Couillard head on, accusing him of being too close to former hospital administrator Arthur Porter.

The second, held Sunday at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in the shadow of the federal parliament, was similar to the earlier debates in this campaign — meaning it was a quiet afternoon where the candidates generally agreed.

About the hottest subjet Sunday was the state of the party itself. Down to 43,000 members across Quebec — in the old days it boasted 200,000 members, candidates cautiously discussed ways to rejuvenate the once powerful Liberal organization.

“How do you explain that so many members left your party,” asked debate moderator Dominique Poirier? “What will you do to woo them back?”

And there was a very visible sign of the lack of interest in the party and the race to replace Jean Charest. The hall where Sunday’s debate was held was half empty.

A generous estimate pegged the number of Liberals on hand at 150. Another 300 or so tuned into the debate feed on the Liberals’ website.

“The Outaouais is a vast region,” Bachand explained later at his post-debate news conference Sunday. “I can understand people wouldn’t want to drive two hours from the upper Papineau region to come — especially when you can watch it on television with your family.”

“There is difficulty mobilizing,” added candidate Pierre Moreau. “It indicates how important these debates need to be and the extra room we need to make for the membership.”

The 400 Liberals who turned up Saturday at the Oscar Peterson hall at Concordia University got a much better show. Tongues were wagging after that debate as the sparks flew between Couillard and a pumped Bachand.

The two butted heads after Couillard repeated his line that he thinks the Charest government was too slow to set up the Charbonneau commission into corruption.

Bachand was part of the that government as finance minister, as was Moreau, who was in transport.

Bachand snapped — he said later he felt under attack — after Couillard said in reference to corruption: “We can’t be Monday morning quarterbacks, but we can’t drop the ball either.”

“While we were fighting corruption and making laws and fighting tax evasion what did you do? You were there partnering with Arthur Porter and working in Saudi Arabia,” Bachand fired across the floor.

The tactic drew loud boos from the Couillard section of the audience.

Clearly angry at such a brazen attempt to destabilize him, Couillard nevertheless kept his cool.

“I will not stoop to using the same tactics that you just used,” he responded. “It’s too easy to drop names and establish guilt by association.”

Bachand’s reference refers to Couillard’s work after he quit active politics in 2008. Couillard was a business partner with Porter, the former director of the McGill University Health Centre who is wanted for questioning by police in connection with the project and has been blamed for cost overruns.

Porter left the country after he quit the hospital job.

Couillard has said it was an inactive business and he long ago ended any contact with Porter.

“It ticked me off,” Bachand told reporters after the debate. “He (Couillard) led the first attack, an unjust and unfair attack on our fight on corruption.”

Bachand gave another lecture to Couillard on his business choices, too.

“Basically in life you don’t associate yourself with someone that you don’t know,” he said.

“It’s not my way of doing politics,” Couillard said at his own news conference on Saturday.

But Bachand himself got a rough ride from his two opponents when he pledged to name a cabinet minister responsible for anglophones. They disagreed with the idea.

Couillard said anglophones do not want to be given special treatment Moreau wondered whether anyone in the community had actually asked for such a position to be created.

“I would never divide Quebecers along linguistic lines,” Coulliard said. “We are all Quebecers.”

The Saturday debate itself opened with a mea culpa on how the Liberals have treated English-speaking Quebecers over the last few years.

“We have to listen more and do better,” Couillard said. “It’s no secret that you feel you have been let down by your party,” Moreau added.

Bachand was blunter in a section where the future of the beleaguered public English school system was discussed. They all pledged to help save it.

“You are under attack in the English-speaking community,” Bachand said in reference to recent Parti Québécois government decisions such as trying to beef up language laws or strip municipalities of bilingual status.

“Don’t be seduced by the songs of Jean-François Lisée,” he said of the PQ minister responsible for anglophones who recently sponsored the Notre Home song event.

Besides a minister for anglo relations, Bachand said he would create government internships for young anglophones interested in joining the civil service where the community is greatly under-represented.

Moreau added if elected premier he would work to ensure the number of anglophones in government correspond to their percentage of the population.

But Couillard insisted it would make more sense to name one powerful minister for Montreal to create jobs for all Quebecers, including anglophones.

They all pledged to improve the West Island transit system, but Bachand and Moreau ganged up on Couillard, who continues to say indexation is the starting point when it comes to university tuition fees.

By Sunday’s debate — which was mostly devoted to health — everyone was feeling more zen.

“It’s like a cat, the claws come out when you are attacked,” Bachand joked at his news conference. “Yesterday I was attacked, I responded.”

There was, however, some serious discussion on the state of the party, which lost the last election and now forms the official opposition in the National Assembly.

Moreau in particular stressed how the Liberals seem to have lost their way and ability to debate issues.

“A political party is not just a place where you raise money and conduct elections. It has to firstly be a place to debate and find solutions.”

The three briefly discussed an embarrassing incident at a 2010 party general council where one Liberal, Martin Drapeau, tried to move an amendment which would have sparked a debate on the merits of holding a inquiry into corrupution and collustion in the construction industry.

With 500 Liberals in the room, not one person dared stand up and second the motion because they knew leader Charest opposed.

“It was not the most glorious moment for the party,” Bachand said. “There was no debate. I was very ill at ease.”

“The episode shows to what point we have cut ourselves out of debating issues,” said Moreau.

The Liberal’s fifth and final leaders’ debate takes place next Saturday in Rimouski.

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